


The Sum of Us

by Losille



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: Body Image, F/M, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:44:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Losille/pseuds/Losille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom’s pregnant wife has a meltdown about her changing body, and he combats her doubts and worries the best way he knows how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sum of Us

**Author's Note:**

> Fluffy. I am not liable for any teeth that rot right out of your head from the sweetness. Written for sarah3347 on Tumblr, per her request for something sexual but sweet. There is light petting, nothing too graphic. I went for “sexy” more than “sexual”. I hope you like it, Sarah3347!

**The Sum of Us**

Tom let himself into an unusually quiet flat that evening, full of excitement and aching to tell someone about the meeting he had just finished.  But the stillness of all activity did not bode well for releasing the pent up information in a timely fashion, especially considering he shared said flat with a ball of energy who almost always at the telly on to the news or music piping through the sound system.  He knew instantly—instinctively—that something was wrong.

“Hello?” he called.

“I’m in the bedroom,” said the soft voice.  His heart skipped a moment; he dropped his coat and bag on a chair and pushed back into the flat, finding the woman who had answered him curled into a ball in their bed wearing an oversized shirt and stretchy trousers.  All excitement he might have felt before completely evaporated at seeing her there, her face ashen with dried tears on her cheeks.  She turned to look at him, but only for a short moment before turning to stare out the window.

“Darling,” he said, crawling into bed and leaning on an arm beside her.  He looked down at her, brushing a piece of her hair behind an ear, tracing his fingers along the shell and down along her jaw. “What’s wrong, love?”

She released a shuddering sigh. “It’s stupid.”

He looked at her seriously. “Nothing’s stupid.”

“No, this is really stupid,” she said. “I’m just an emotional pregnant mess.  Don’t worry about it.”

Tom sighed. “What makes you think, in all our time together, that I’m just going to leave it at that?  You know I have to make whatever it is better.”

“You can’t make it better,” she replied.

“Let me try,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Come on.” He waved a finger at her as though it could magically make her explain herself.  Instead, her lips split with a watery laugh at his antics. “You know you want to tell me.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I don’t, really.”

“I’m seriously not leaving you alone until you tell me so I can make it better,” he said.

After another heaving sigh and hoisting herself into a sitting position onto the bed, she looked at him. “It’s just… it’s just that I went to put on my favorite pair of fat jeans and they didn’t fit.”

Tom blinked.  He did a double take as his brain tried to compute the information in his head. “You’re pregnant, darling.  What did you—?”

As soon as it was out of his mouth, he cringed.  Even he, with all of his media training and press handling and fan interaction, still occasionally stuck his foot in his mouth.  Unfortunately, it seemed to be happening more and more as of late, especially with her.

She made a scoffing sound and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “See?  I _knew_ you wouldn’t understand.”

“Alexandra, come back here,” he commanded.

She turned and gave him a fiery look that did not bode well for his future sleeping arrangements.

“Please?” he begged.

After hesitating for a moment, she inched back toward the bed and sat with her back against the headboard.  She laid her hands on the barely perceptible swell of her belly.

“I’m sorry it came out of my mouth that way,” Tom replied.  He’d learned very quickly over the last few months how to just apologize and move on, even if he didn’t agree that he should apologize.  It was, overall, quite a humbling experience. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

She have him an incredulous look. “Yeah, well, when your wife tells you she feels like a fat old cow, you’re supposed to allay her fears.  Not say, ‘oh, well, this is only the beginning’ and expect me to understand.”

Tom had never felt so defeated in his life.  This beautiful, smart, incredible woman who was a million times more intelligent and rational than he, had been reduced to a puddle of hormones and girl issues the span of almost four months.  This was the same woman who got up every day and went to a little laboratory to crunch numbers and conduct experiments; she never descended into the namby pamby world of emotional thinking. 

Everything he had come to love about her seemed to have flown right out the window when they had done the pregnancy test a few months ago.  It left him completely bewildered as to how he should handle such a different woman.  He’d heard stories of course, of similar experiences from his friends, but he never imagined it could happen to his Alexandra, of all people.

“But you do understand _why_ you’re increasing,” Tom said. “You’re the doctor, after all.”

“Ugh!” She exclaimed, tossing a small pillow at him angrily. “You know, _you’re_ the one that did this to me.  I feel it’s only fair you suffer, too.”

Tom couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “I _did_ do it to you, and I had a wonderful time doing it.  So did you, if I recall correctly.”

Alex shot him a withering glare.

“Darling,” he started again. “Whilst your hormones are one thing, I’m not suffering from what’s happening to your body.”

She sighed.

“As a matter of fact,” he replied, “I love it.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asked.

Tom hoped it did. “Does it?”

She turned to him with a miffed expression that she couldn’t hold.  Her face softened and the worry lines at the corners of her mouth softened instantly. “A little.”

“Good, because it’s true,” he replied. “I didn’t marry you because you were a certain size.”

“I _know_ that.  But I think about all these women in your life who are beautiful models and actresses and such and I get worried.  And then there’s Elsa who hardly gained any weight with the new baby, and is back to wearing a bikini,” Alex explained. “My sister didn’t even have to buy maternity clothes until her last trimester.  And here I am, fourteen weeks in and I’m so bloated and have gained so much weight and already have a belly.”

Tom scooted closer to her and wrapped her in his arms, entwining his fingers with hers as they rested over the swell of her abdomen. “I know this probably isn’t going to make sense right now with everything going on in your head, but I could give a fuck about anyone else.  This is you.  No, it’s _us_.  And I love you, and us, and the baby growing inside you.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “I’m sure.”

She breathed out a small sigh as her body finally relaxed against his.  After a long time in silence, she shifted her head and her lips grazed the underside of his jaw. “I love you.”

“I love you,” he repeated, bending and capturing her lips.  Arousal flared despite the situation and coursed to his groin.  He shifted uncomfortably, but it also gave him an idea.  One that he hoped would solve both his hormonal wife problem and his desire problem.  Of course, he supposed, neither problem would ever actually be solved; only placated for the time being.

He separated from her and crawled in front of her.  She eyed him skeptically, somewhat like he’d gone completely barmy, which wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, unfortunately. “What are you doing?”

Tom gripped her shins and slid his hands under her calves, digging fingers into fabric and the sinew beneath.  Parting her legs, he scooted his way up into his favorite spot between them. “Absolutely nothing,” he finally replied, tugging on her legs until she slid slightly down the headboard.

“Oh, no, buddy,” she protested, “if you think I’m going to—.”

He cut her off mid sentence when he leaned up on his knees and covered her mouth with his, eating her words and grazing his teeth along her bottom lip.  She groaned into his mouth, but he wasn’t entirely certain whether it was more annoyance or delight that had caused it.  But she did wrap her arms around his neck, so he considered that a point in his favor.

Careful not to put too much weight on her body, he used the moment to grasp her hips and tug her further down the bed until her head lay comfortably on a pillow.  The friction of the bedclothes had caught her shirt and drug it up her back.  It revealed her abdomen, but caught on her newly bounteous breasts before it bared them to the cool air. 

She giggled lightly. “Why do I let you get me into these situations?  Even when I really don’t like your face right now?”

He grinned at her. “I’m _attempting_ to change your opinion of me.”

“Good luck with that,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest in defiance.

Tom laughed and responded by reaching for her hands and then pinning them at her side. “Let me try?”

“I know what you’re going to try to do,” she replied. “And I know it’s not going to work.”

“Why not?”

She didn’t reply.

He kissed her again, brushing his hands along the curve of her waist to her hips.  They were more rounded than normal, but wonderful at the same time.  He so much preferred the rounded, curvy female form to those other women who spent too much time in the gym or simply didn’t eat.  Women were supposed to be soft.  Well, at least, that’s what he preferred. “I love your hips.  I love to grab them as we make love.”

Alex sighed and closed her eyes. “You do?”

“I do,” he answered as he languidly kissed a trail down her neck . “And having more to hold is always better, in my opinion.”

She moaned when he stopped for a moment at her clavicle and sucked lightly.

“And your breasts,” he said, slipping his hands beneath her shirt and quickly doing away with it. “Your breasts, are fuller, heavier.  Beautiful.”  He cupped one in his hand, teasing his fingers over the mound to the tightened, dusky nipple.  Brushing the pad of his thumb over the peak elicited a soft moan and slight buck of her hips, but it wasn’t enough for him.  Dipping his head, he laved his tongue across the pebble, reveling in the taste of the sweet saltiness of her skin.  She arched beneath him, her hands finally finding their way up and around his shoulders.

There _were_ some benefits to pregnancy, he’d found.  Mostly the fact that, at certain times, every part of her body was a live wire, so much more ready and waiting for his attentions.  Fortunately, today was one of those days.  Even despite her view of her body.

“This is an unfair seduction,” she murmured, still protesting his advances.

He stopped the attention he was giving to the other breast and looked up at her. “How so?”

“You know I’m always powerless to resist you.”

Tom grinned to himself and went back to his task, kissing a trail down his wife’s belly.  He smoothed his hands over the slight bump. “Do you know how… _powerfully_ masculine it makes me feel to know that you carry around the sum of us inside of you?  I always thought of it as such a horribly cliché way of describing the way men felt when they had exercised their powers of regeneration.  But it’s true.  I understand it now.  Seeing this,” he spread his fingers wide over her rounded abdomen, “seeing you grow, knowing why you’re growing, is my undoing.  Every. Single. Time.”

“Great,” she mused, though the edge was gone from her voice.  Her playfulness had returned, and it made him relax. “My husband, the Neanderthal.  Pretty soon you’ll be running around telling people how you just made fire and invented the wheel.”

He chuckled lowly. “I’m not promising I won’t.”

Alexandra laughed loudly at that.  He felt what remained of her tension completely release from her body.

“Your body is remarkable, Alexandra,” he explained, “and not only for the fact that it is carrying around a tiny miracle.  It is remarkable because it’s _you_ , and I love every single part of you, no matter what it looks like.  I can’t take away how you feel, but I can keep telling you how _I_ feel.  Hopefully that means something.”

When she met his eyes, he saw the tears in them, but she did not let them fall.  She was too strong to let them fall.  He inched his way back up and moved to her side to lay beside her, pulling her to his chest and kissing her ear.  She shimmied closer, slipping her leg between his and twining it in them comfortably.   Her fingers sought the back of his head and buried in his hair, pulling at the curls as she kissed him slowly.  After some time, she paused and punctuated her stopping with a peck. “It means everything, Tom.”

He sighed, content that the situation was abated for the time being, but knowing it would just be something else the next day.  Still, what he had said was true.  No truer words had ever been spoken.

She cleared her throat after they lay in silence for a few minutes. “You’re not going to stop there, are you?”

Tom couldn’t contain his laughter at her query and rolled onto his back.  She followed him without being prompted and straddled his hips, a look of fiery hunger replacing the defeatism that had been in her eyes earlier.

He had absolutely no intention of stopping.  Ever.


End file.
